You reap what you sow. You need to sow good seed into good ground. The parable of the sower illustrates what stops you--Failure or Success, Success or Failure. God has a vision for our completeness, our fulfillment or success in Jesus. What stops you from seeing the vision? The lies of Satan. What brings you to Failure? The same lies.

You know this is a spiritual war, and you know the danger of listening to the lies of Satan. The battle is for your mind. Satan controls your mind through his lies. Satan lies through the culture, through media, and through a deceptive inner voice. Satan tries to make truth, reality, seem unreal. And he tries to make lies, the unreal, seem to be valid. Paying attention to the enemy of your soul is what stops you. What is the difference between spiritual Failure and Success? Examine The Downward Spiral of Sin and Death diagram. If you listen to your Flesh, you are listening to Satan. If you listen to your Flesh, you Sin. When you sin, your submission to your fleshly nature plants evil see in your heart. Your heart hardens against the good seed that comes from God. Your spiritual senses become dull, and you can hear God's voice less clearly. Your conscience becomes seared. This is the death state. You have saved your fleshly life, but you have lost your life in Christ. He who saves his life will lose it. You become numb, Spirit, Soul, and Body. This sets you up to yield to your flesh even more and the process repeats itself. With each failure, you are more likely to fail. On the other hand, if you listen to God's voice, each success makes you more likely to succeed. (Read More) Success or Failure, which will you choose?

Once you are born again, you have just begun. You are just a baby in Christ. But what stops you from moving to higher heights and deeper depths? What stops you? If you get "stuck" at this point, you will remain a baby. The parable of the sower tells you how to grow up in Christ, but it also warns about the things that will keep you from becoming mature. Satan and all his servants are using lies to keep you from pressing into fulfillment in Jesus. As we come to know Jesus better, we have better discernment, and His Spirit is more free to do His work through us.

God has a pattern for the Church. The Church is the mechanism that God uses to bring the Church to maturity. What stops you from finding the Church that you were created to be fulfilled and satisfied in? The lies of Satan. There are very few places where we can see the church being built according to the pattern that is in Scripture. God is showing His wisdom to the principalities and powers, and He is doing this through the real Church, the Body of Christ.

The worldly elements that have been brought into the church, the things that defile Christ, must go. When the world is allowed into the Church, it sows evil seed. It hardens hearts. It destroys the work of God. It does all of this while claiming to build the Church. The hard hearts cannot receive and understand the good seed of the Kingdom of God.

On the other hand, the house of God is being built according to the pattern. Christ is already beginning to manifest Himself in that temple. The church is coming into unity with Jesus, although only in a remnant of those called to take part in the first resurrection. Every precept of man is being removed and the pattern is being completed in the spiritual temple. The Church is the Kingdom of God, though immature at this time. The parable of the sower, with the sower who sows the good seed of the Kingdom, is an illustration of God's method for bringing the Church into glory. It is through the Church that God is showing His wisdom to the principalities and powers. Building the Church according to the pattern of Scripture is part of the sowing of good seed into good ground. False orders harden hearts to the good seed of the Kingdom. Good seed softens hearts to the good seed of the Kingdom. The Church must be built up and assembled until the church arises as one totally complete man with Jesus Christ as the Head, and the measure of the stature will be the fullness of Christ. Ephesians 4

Matthew 13:18-24 Hear ye therefore the parable of the sower. When any one heareth the word of the kingdom, and understandeth it not, then cometh the wicked one, and catcheth away that which was sown in his heart. This is he which received seed by the way side. But he that received the seed into stony places, the same is he that heareth the word, and anon with joy receiveth it; Yet hath he not root in himself, but dureth for a while: for when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by he is offended. He also that received seed among the thorns is he that heareth the word; and the care of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful. But he that received seed into the good ground is he that heareth the word, and understandeth it; which also beareth fruit, and bringeth forth, some an hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.

When a Christian hears the gospel of the Kingdom (good seed) there are four possible responses. The seed that falls by the way side, the trampled path, results in No Response. The seed that falls on the stony places: An Emotional or Intellectual Response. The seed that falls among thorns results in an Unfruitful Response. The seed that fell on the good ground results in a Fruitful Response.

The first three types of soil represent the very things that will keep Christians from being fulfilled in Christ. The reality is that the heart of man is complex and can be having all four responses at once, or any combination of responses. We can grow in Christ or we can actually become less sensitive and submissive to the Holy Spirit.

Another metaphor that God uses is that of good seed and bad seed. (Hosea 8:7, Galatians 6:7-9) There is bad seed that will bring you into unholiness. There is good seed that will grow up into the fruit of the Spirit and holiness.

There is a downward spiral: Your flesh lies to you to contradict God every time faith comes to open the door to grace. Grace has power to do the work of God in you, which leads to a renewed mind and transformation." href="http://seekfind.net/Wisdom__Righteousness___Reality.html">God utters the truth to you. The Holy Spirit speaks the truth every time your flesh lies to you. Even if you are born again, your flesh may be crucified, but crucifixion is a slow death, and your flesh is calling out from the cross. Every communication from your flesh is a lie, since your flesh is a slave to the father of lies, Satan. Effective lies usually contain a good deal of true information, but the flesh twists this information. For Christians, effective lies told by the flesh will probably include a good deal of Scripture, but the Scripture will be twisted and mis-applied. When your flesh lies, and you listen to your flesh, you sin. And sin plants evil seed in your heart and your heart is made harder and more resistant to God. Your spiritual senses are also dulled. The flesh is a veil that keeps you from seeing, and sin makes the flesh stronger. Then, it is harder for you to receive the things of God. The seeds of sin grow up as weeds to choke out any blessing God would give you. You are drawn to the many influences of the world and these trample any blessing that God would give you. You begin to die in your spirit, in your heart/mind/soul, and in your nervous system and your whole body.

Here is a list things that will cause hardness in the heart of a Christian and cause frustration:

Anger--letting the sun go down upon our wrath

Idolatry (Anything we put along side of God is an idol. And we are also seeing a blending of neo-paganism, pantheism, New Age, and other occult practices increasingly introduced into the Church.)

Witchcraft (You would not think that we would see witchcraft in the Church, but the methods and philosophies creep in, often presented as PMA or self-improvement.)